


Blood Red and Goin' Down

by Edonohana



Category: The Stand - Stephen King
Genre: F/F, Female Randall Flagg, Music
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 02:21:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,466
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27287086
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Edonohana/pseuds/Edonohana
Summary: Nadine meets a woman at a bar.
Relationships: Nadine Cross/Randall Flagg
Comments: 6
Kudos: 17
Collections: Trick or Treat Exchange 2020





	Blood Red and Goin' Down

**Author's Note:**

  * For [skazka](https://archiveofourown.org/users/skazka/gifts).



> No actual sex, but otherwise standard Flagg warnings apply.

Nadine couldn’t remember if she’d ever been in a bar like this before. It seemed familiar, but probably from movies and songs, the same way she’d learned what they were called: _honky-tonk joints_. She’d definitely never gone to a bar alone before, and her giggling college friends—former friends, she corrected herself, the Ouija board had put an end to any real or nascent friendship—had favored the kind that would mix you up a cocktail with a fancy name, or pour out beer in a plastic cup to drink while watching the frat boys watching you. 

But here she was, in a bar two towns over that she’d selected specifically for no overlap with her social circles. It had sawdust on the floor and Waylon Jennings on the jukebox. The price of anonymity was country music.

She walked to the bar, hearing her high heels click and shuffle on the sawdust-sprinkled floor, feeling the stares of men caressing her body. She’d worn a short black dress—the little black dress the magazines assured her every woman must have—but she didn’t feel sexy. She felt cold. Goosebumps prickled her bare arms and legs. 

No doubt alcohol would warm her up enough to do the deed. That was what people came to bars for, after all. She was out of college, she had her first job, and her virginity was old enough to not get carded. It was time.

She sat on a stool, reached to tug her skirt down, then remembered what she was there for and laid her hand on the counter. She opened her mouth to order, and her mind went completely blank. She didn’t like beer, the college girl cocktails were so sweet, and this was hardly the place to order a glass of wine.

Right on cue, someone sat down beside her and said, “A pretty woman like you should never have to order her own drink. An Old Fashioned for the lady, and a Wild Turkey on the rocks for me.”

It was just like Nadine had imagined it. Except that the person beside her was a woman.

Her gaze stole upward, from the dusty cowboy boots to the worn denim to the jacket with the edges of pamphlets peeking out from the pockets—Nadine couldn’t see what they were for, but she didn’t think they were tracts—to the short rumpled hair. The woman’s face was shadowed, the color of her eyes impossible to see, but Nadine figured she’d have an all-American cowgirl face to go with the rest of her get-up. Pretty, not beautiful. Cherry-cheeked, farm-fresh. 

Nadine had never imagined having a lesbian try to pick her up at a bar, but if she had, she’d have pictured a dapper woman in a man’s suit, or a predatory blonde with long red fingernails. Not… _her_.

Her drink was in front of her before she could explain that she didn’t swing that way.

It was reddish gold, like a sunset. Nadine was so acutely uncomfortable that she picked it up and took a sip, just to postpone having to say something. It burned pleasantly going down. She took another. 

In the silence, the song from the jukebox sounded clearly. A woman's clear voice sang, _That Georgia sun was blood red and goin’ down._ Or maybe she wasn't a woman. She sounded no older than Nadine's students.

“My name’s Reba,” said the woman beside her. “Reba Fitzroy.”

“I’m Nadine Cross,” said Nadine. “But I don’t—”

“We’re just women talking,” said Reba, swirling her whiskey. “Gals being pals. Nothing wrong with that… Is there?”

Nadine took another drink, wondering if she’d misinterpreted Reba. Uncertainly, she said, “No.” 

“Your hair,” said Reba. “So unusual. You’re smart not to cover up the white. It’s very striking.”

Was this how women talked to each other? It was, wasn’t it? Nadine had overheard a million conversations in which women complimented each other’s hair. She’d even gotten very similar comments to the ones Reba had given her, and never thought anything of it. 

“Thank you,” said Nadine. She heard how stiff she sounded, and tried again, trying to imitate her memories of those conversations. “I like yours. It must be nice to have a short cut like that. Mine takes forever to dry.”

“Mmm. Yeah, I bet you can stay wet for hours and hours.”

Nadine stared into her glass, her face burning. Was Reba flirting with her? Taunting her? Or was Nadine the one with the dirty mind?

Clink, clink, clink went the ice in Reba’s glass. Clack, clack, clack went the tap of her bootheels on the floor. It was hypnotic.

Nadine again found herself listening to the music. The teenage girl was singing about how her father took her to find her mother and her lover, and murdered them both while she watched.

_An’ daddy left them both  
Soakin’ up the sawdust on the floor  
That Georgia sun was blood red and goin’ down_

Nadine shivered. 

“You’re cold,” said Reba. “Here, have my jacket.”

“No, thank—” Nadine began.

Reba took off her jacket and started to drape it over Nadine’s shoulders. It would be easier not to protest, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to. Probably Reba did just want a gal pal. And if not, Nadine _had_ come to the bar to lose her virginity. Did it matter who she lost it with? And Reba was pretty, so pretty, or at least Nadine thought she was, though she still couldn't quite see her face.

Reba’s fingers brushed the back of her neck. It was an unmistakably sexual gesture, slow and sensual, and cold as dry ice. Nadine jerked away, suddenly repulsed, and one of the pamphlets fell out and hit the barroom floor. Nadine could see the cover clearly. It was a recruiting pamphlet for the Ku Klux Klan.

The cold now felt like a dash of icy water to her face, waking her up. In her teacher’s voice that she knew could make even an adult cringe, she said, “I think you’d better pick up your _literature_ and find another place to sit.”

Reba leaned in close. Her breath crawled into Nadine’s ear like a spider. “Too late to say no. We’re in the house of the dead, Nadine.”

Nadine froze, her heart thudding like a drum. “What did you say?”

“Since you said no, I’m gonna go sleep like the dead, Nadine.” Reba drained her glass. “Been a long night.”

“Goodnight,” Nadine managed to get out. Her hands were shaking. 

She stood up. The jukebox was now playing an old folk song, a crackly acoustic recording of “Goodnight Irene.” The singer was a woman, her voice thick with some dark hunger. It suited the song, which Nadine had always found morbid. What sort of love song had lyrics like _I’m gonna take morphine and die?_

She half-expected a hand to grab her shoulder at the door, but no one hindered her. When she glanced back, her last glimpse of Reba was of her sitting relaxed on her bar stool, the lights making her hair glint red and casting a veil of shadow over her face. 

Nadine slammed the door behind her. Her heels hit the sidewalk with dull thuds like her heartbeats. She hurried to her car, keys clenched in her fist like she might have to fend off a rapist. Which was ridiculous. Women didn’t rape women. And Reba hadn’t followed her. 

She started her car. “Goodnight Irene” burst from the speakers.

_I asked your mother for you  
She told me that you were too young_

Sheer terror turned Nadine’s blood to ice. That song had been playing on the jukebox, not the radio. And she hadn’t had the radio on when she’d parked the car. She hit the off button so hard that she jammed her finger painfully.

The music didn't stop.

_Goodnight Irene, goodnight Irene_

Nadine yanked the key from the ignition. The rumble and vibration of the engine stopped. But the song continued. And now Nadine recognized the voice.

_Goodnight Nadine, goodnight Nadine  
I’ll get you in my dreams_

Frantic, Nadine stabbed the radio with the key, clenching it in her fist and driving down like a psycho killer in a movie. Sparks flew, static popped, plastic shattered, and the song slowed to _jump into the river and drooooooown,_ then died. 

Shaking, Nadine drove home. She never went back to that bar, or to any bar. She never fixed her radio, either. 

When Larry suggested motorcycles, the first thing that jumped into her mind was that they didn’t have radios. But every pebble they hit that bounced with a sharp clack reminded her of Reba’s bootheels on a barroom floor, and when they stopped for the night, the dying roar of the engine whispered, _Goodnight Nadine._


End file.
